the obama administration, however, may like it, i think. president obama has already indicated that he will be proposal certain reforms to these processes and has a review panel going over them with a report due by the end of the year. so it's possible some of these ideas will line up with president obama's own reforms which may be resisted by his intelligence community. >> when it's resisted by the intelligence community, i guess that takes us to whatever the next crisis is, whoever wants to predict that. but does this drift away given the next security crisis for the nation? >> no question that if there were another attack, and these practices were faulted, that would be a disaster. and all efforts to reform them would then stop. and what this letter essentially is arguing is that the economic benefits to the u.s. economy and to these companies outweigh the reduction in risk that arises from these surveillance practices. that's a very controversial point. they're good arguments on both sides of it. and it is in a way the crux of the matte